Gravity or Conveyor Fed
Commercial pavers can be separated into two different categories - gravity fed or conveyor fed - depending upon how they deliver asphalt from the hopper to the screed. Given a contractor's preferences and workload, each machine type has its advantages and disadvantages.

The least expensive category of all pavers, gravity-fed units typically are priced between $25,000 and $50,000. Usually weighing less than 10,000 pounds, gravity-fed pavers offer 50-horsepower or less and provide maximum paving widths of 12 to 13 feet. As the name suggests, these pavers rely solely on gravity to feed asphalt from the hopper to the screed assembly, which is the finishing portion of the machine. As asphalt is dumped into the hopper by feeder trucks, the paver’s bed is hydraulically raised until gravity takes effect and draws the asphalt towards the screed, out of the paver and onto the work surface.

Gravity fed pavers can not be considered high-capacity or high-production machines. Though some contractors will pull 500 to 600 tons of material though them in a day, they’re more commonly used as 200 tons-per-day machines. Therefore, it’s very common to see gravity-fed pavers being used for driveway, small parking lot and general road maintenance applications, but not for more demanding paving jobs.

On the other hand, because they can handle such a wide variety of applications, conveyor-fed commercial pavers are many times considered the Swiss army knife of compact paving equipment. Whereas the largest gravity-fed units offer maximum paving widths of 13 feet and engines generating up to 50 horsepower, these capabilities would depict the smallest equipment offerings of the conveyor-fed category.